


Domino

by annagarny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annagarny/pseuds/annagarny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who'd have thought that a pair of well-fitted jeans and a skin-tight dark purple v-neck shirt would evoke such a reaction from the man known throughout SHIELD for showing *nothing* on his face?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domino

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Eight Encounters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/332703) by [annagarny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annagarny/pseuds/annagarny). 



Phil wasn't much of a dancer, so when Clint and the rest of the team insisted on dragging him to some club just outside Times Square, he went so reluctantly as to almost having to be physically carried.

Thor had, in fact, offered to do just that.

It was supposed to be 'team building' but Coulson wasn't entirely sure he counted as part of the team. When he said as much, Tony just muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'You're screwing one of us, you're one of us.' before Steve clapped a hand over his mouth and shoved Tony though the door of the VIP area, rolling his eyes semi-apologetically at Phil before turning his attention back to the self-proclaimed genius-billionaire-playoboy-philanthropist who was now ogling everything within groping distance and demanding cocktails from a remarkably put-together waitress.

Phil's jaw dropped when he spotted Clint, though, his legendary self-control slipping for the barest moment before he composed himself.

Who'd have thought that a pair of well-fitted jeans and a skin-tight dark purple v-neck shirt would evoke such a reaction from the man known for showing *nothing* on his face?

The fact that the VIP area was on the rooftop definitely helped. There was minimal lighting, most of the ambience was provided by the surrounding buildings and the almost-full moon overhead. And then there was the way that Clint moved, the second he saw Phil, his eyelids dropping to half-mast as he stepped away from the bar, strutting over to his boyfriend with such a sense of ownership that Phil was surprised he didn't wake up with 'PROPERTY OF CLINT BARTON' tattooed on his forehead just from the look Clint gave him.

He didn't move, having stalled entirely just inside the entrance, and Clint stepped right into his space without hesitating, sliding his hand down Phil's shoulder to his hip, then ground against him in a way that Phil was certain should be illegal in at least a few states.

Before Phil could recover his senses, move a single muscle in response, Clint threw a darkly flirtatious look over his shoulder and sauntered away, back towards the bar, leaving Phil feeling as if there were metal bands constricting around his chest. He knew that he had it bad, but damn, not only were they in public, but the rest of SHIELD was here, hell, he was certain that he'd seen Natasha and Darcy lingering near the bar before his eyes had locked onto Clint, and now, his eyes slowly coming back into focus, as he was looking around the space, he realised that the entire VIP area seemed to be filled exclusively with people from his workplace.

Barton had just fucking dry-humped him in front of two-thirds of SHIELD and walked away as if all he'd done was shake hands.

Slowly, achingly slowly, the rest of his senses returned to him and the throbbing music resolved itself into a pop song he'd heard on the radio a few times. He could smell smoke, well, they were on the rooftop, and it was a habit that Natasha had never fully given up. Someone, he turned his head and saw that it was Darcy, pressed a glass into his hand.

"Gin and tonic, made it a double. Hi, Phil. I can call you Phil, right? I mean, I know you're my boss and all, but it's a party-"  
"Phil, Phil is fine, Darcy. Thanks." He lifted the drink and downed it in a single mouthful and before he could even ask, Darcy had replaced it with another that she had somehow conjured. 

This, right here, anticipating his needs and helping him make sense of things, this was why he had hired her. 

After the incident in New Mexico he'd spent three weeks helping Jane get her lab reorganised and he hadn't failed to see Darcy taking care of every single one of Jane's needs, often before Jane herself knew that she needed anything. 

Offhand one day he'd asked Darcy how much longer her internship was, and when she'd told him that, technically, it had ended two months ago, he'd asked what she was planning on doing with her Poli-Sci degree, once Jane had fixed the Bridge and moved out of New Mexico to work full-time with SHIELD in Manhattan.

"I don't know, maybe go to grad school?"

"Why don't you come with her to New York? I could use an assistant like you. You already know enough about SHIELD that we'd make you sign two reams of non-disclosure, you might as well stay in-house."

"What?" Darcy had been, for once, completely lost for words.

"I need an assistant who can keep up with me, isn't afraid of a challenge and doesn't bat an eyelid at the strange things I'm sometimes involved in. You tasered the God of Thunder, and you then  
watched a fifteen-foot metal robot destroy half the town, cracking jokes the whole time."

"Huh."

"So, let me know." He'd handed her a business card, one he'd scribbled his *actual* cell number on beforehand, and two months later when Dr Foster had figured out the Bridge, he'd received a get message from her, asking where she should apply to be a bad-ass assistant to a bad-ass SHIELD agent.

It had taken Darcy exactly one week to completely overhaul his entire schedule, fix the annoying filters on his e-mail inbox that everyone seemed to be able to get around and, without him saying a thing about it, become acutely aware of his relationship with Clint.

Now here she was, having been his P.A. for just over five months, handing him double gin and tonics and strategising how to get Clint back for his lewd display.

"He's being a dick, this week. Did something happen that I should know about?" Darcy asked, and Phil racked his brains for a reason. It was true, though, Clint had been even more aggravating than usual this week, ever since he'd come back from California, where he'd been at Tony Stark's Malibu house testing out the new incendiary arrowheads. It couldn't have been anything Tony said, the two of them had such a deep bromance that Phil sometimes found himself a little jealous of the easy camaraderie, and even now as he looked over Darcy's head in Clint's direction the two of them were leaning against the same section of railing, laughing uproariously about something while Steve stood a few feet away, cheeks flaming as he tried not to smile. Obviously something rude, crude and unrefined that both of them found completely hilarious.

No, Tony wasn't the problem.

"I have no idea what it is. I met him at the airport and drove him home myself, I even managed to get the whole afternoon off so that we could just hang out, but he said something about jet lag and went straight to bed. I tried to talk to him, but he ignored me, so I watched a movie while he napped. Then he went down to the gym and sparred with Natasha for a few hours. Now that I think about it... he's been distant all week."  
"You said you met him at the airport?"  
"Yes."  
"He was in Malibu for two weeks, right? You hadn't seen him that whole time?"  
"We talked on the phone most nights, but the time difference made it hard, one of us was sleeping or one was working. We Skyped a few times, too."  
"How did you greet him when he got off the plane?" Darcy asked, narrowing her eyes, thinking about one incident with an ex-boyfriend that had been the straw that broke the camels' back and led to the nastiest break-up she'd ever initiated.  
"How I usually do, I welcomed him back to New York City."  
"Did you hug him?"  
Phil almost choked on the ice cube in his mouth. Hug Clint? On the runway at Newark Airport, in front of two-dozen other agents, not to mention Tony Stark and the press that the man seemed to have trailing after him like a bad smell.  
"You didn't hug him, did you?"  
"Uh... no, not until we got home."  
"Did you pull the car over as soon as you were out of range and pin him to the passenger seat in a moment of passion?" Darcy asked, as if she were asking what he'd had or breakfast, not discussing things that Phil considered very, very personal.  
"No!" he almost shouted, and his eyebrows raised as Darcy began to nod, apparently understanding something that was still completely evading Phil.  
"So, you hadn't seen your boyfriend, the man you profess to love more than your Beretta, in two weeks. You took the afternoon off to collect him from the airport, risking the wrath of Director Fury in the process, but when he touched down you didn't show him any affection other than a 'welcome back to town, buddy', the same as you would have done for any other agent?"

The light bulb was almost visible above Phil's head as it all fell into place.

"Oh."  
"Yeah, oh. No wonder he was pissed off. The two of you are together all the time, if you seriously think that nobody knows about you then you are more delusional than I thought. Clint knows that everyone knows. You know that everyone knows. He just wants you to acknowledge it, somewhere public, somewhere it can't be written off."  
"But-"  
"If you bring up Sixth Avenue as an example, I will smack you upside the head, boss or no boss."  
Phil sighed, knowing when he was beaten. He drained the last of his drink and Darcy procured him another in a matter of seconds, before he asked a question that no man should ever ask a woman. Especially not a woman like Darcy Lewis, who practically lived and breathed for interfering in other people's lives.

"What can I do to fix this?"

Darcy's smile almost cracked her face in half for a brief second, before she contained herself.

"Are you sure you want my help?"  
"Yes."  
"You're sure? Because if you accept my help you have to do exactly what I tell you and not question it, no matter how crazy anything I say might sound."  
Phil glanced at his drink and, steeling himself, nodded.  
"Yes, Darcy. I want your help to fix this problem with Clint." He told her, very careful to lay the parameters very clearly.  
"Good. Now that you've finally come to your senses, first, we need backup." She raised a hand in the general direction of the bar and with her usual unsettling silence and efficiency, Natasha appeared at Phil's other elbow.

"So, was it what we thought?" Natasha asked Darcy as Phil groaned.  
"Who else knows about this?" he asked, but was summarily ignored by both women.  
"Worse."  
"How is it worse?" Natasha looked at Phil with something approaching pity. "You silly men, why can't you ever just talk to each other?"  
"Because that would mean admitting that they have feelings, Tash." Darcy told her, before switching gears into problem-solving mode. "Phil went to get Clint at the airport on Monday."  
"Oh, really?"  
"Yeah, and all Clint got was driven home."  
"Oh, Phil." Natasha put a hand on Phil's arm and he suddenly felt like he was five years old again, being told by his mother that it was a lovely thought, but his goldfish really hadn't liked the Froot Loops.  
"What can we do to fix this?" Phil asked, hoping to get the focus off of poor-Phil-he-can't-even-manage-his-own-love-life and onto solving the goddamn problem so that he could continue to actually have a love life.  
"We can't do much. You, on the other hand, can make up for just about anything with a big romantic gesture." Darcy told him, thinking about romantic movies and how the male leads always did something completely over-the-top and occasionally life-threatening just to prove how much they did, really, love the leading lady, in spite of how much of an ass-hat he had been for the entire third act.  
"What the hell do you mean, big romantic gesture?" Phil had never been into romantic movies. Give him explosions and action and shirtless men over whining women and floppy-haired idiots any day.  
"We mean, go over there and kiss him until he can't breathe."  
"What, in front of everyone?"  
"Yes." Both Darcy and Natasha affirmed.  
Phil sighed. Okay, so he knew that his relationship with Clint was hardly a secret, but he'd never been the type to go for public displays of affection, no matter who the other party might be. But the girls were probably right. A good deal of the problems in his life were solved when he took the advice of the women in that same life into account.

"Okay, girls. Wish me luck."  
"Good luck!" Natasha told him, but Darcy stopped him, first.  
"Hang on, hang on!" She caught him by the sleeve of his shirt and pulled him back into her space, her hands moving so fast that he could barely follow what she was doing as she unbuttoned the dark green material, pulling it away from his throat and removing his tie entirely, stuffing it into her purse. He almost objected to the loss of the tie, but he knew that he would get it back. He did begin to object, however, when she unbuttoned his cuffs and pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, folding the material back on itself.  
"What are you-"  
"Clint has a thing for your forearms - don't tell me you haven't noticed how touchy he gets when you roll up your sleeves. Open."  
Phil obeyed, opening his mouth without thinking, which really displayed the high level of trust he had in his assistant. She popped something in his mouth and he bit down, a strong surge of mint exploding on his tongue. Right. A breath mint was probably a very good idea after two and a half gin-and-tonic's, the second half of his third glass had vanished somewhere while Natasha rolled his other sleeve up.

Darcy stepped back to admire her handiwork and gave Phil one last instruction.

"Run a hand through your hair."  
"What hair?" Phil asked, trying for sarcasm but falling flat.  
"Trust me." He did. Implicitly. So he carded his fingers through his short locks and raised one eyebrow at his assistant and her recently-recruited partner in crime.  
"Good?"  
"Go get him."

Phil took a deep, shuddering breath, squared his shoulders and once again looked over the top of Darcy's head to where his boyfriend was... standing next to Tony Stark.

Automatically, his eyes slid down Clint's body, the same way they did every time he saw Clint in public. Phil's mouth quirked slightly in what could have been interpreted as a smile, appreciating the lithe line of Clint's chest beneath the fitted t-shirt.

His eyes widened as his gaze came to an abrupt halt at Clint's arse. Admittedly, it was a gorgeous arse, Phil had dug his fingers into that flesh more times than he could count, but right at this moment his determination to make a big romantic gesture melted like so much ice in the presence of a furnace created from nothing but white-hot rage.

On that backside, encased in dark blue jeans, where, goddammit, Phil's hands should go and nobody else's, was spread the palm of King of the Jerkasses Mr Tony Stark himself.

In the same moment that Phil spotted the hand, apparently so did Natasha and Darcy, but before either could so much as move to restrain him Phil was gone, striding across the rooftop with such purpose that people parted before him. He reached Clint, Tony and Steve in a matter of seconds and came to a stop behind Tony, who turned to face him, smiling from behind mirrored sunglasses.

That was IT. Phil was at his limit the moment he saw someone else's hand on his Clint's backside, but the second he saw Tony Stark's mirrored sunglasses what tiny shred of self-control he had was evaporated.

"Get your hand off him." Phil growled, and was treated to a raised eyebrow from Stark.  
"What?"  
"I'm not repeating myself, Stark."  
"Look, Phil-" Tony began, turning on the charm that usually won over everyone in the room, but Phil was having none of it. He reached down and caught Stark by the wrist, wrenching his hand away from Clint with enough force to make Tony wince.  
"Hey, come on, Phil, it-"  
"Shut. Up." Phil told him, punctuating the second word with a right hook directly to the smug billionaire's nose.

Tony stumbled back, reeling, and came back up a few seconds later ready to throw a punch of his own but stopped dead when he saw what was happening, grinning through the blood running down his face.

Phil had turned as Tony fell away, caught Clint my the back of the neck and kissed him hard enough that their teeth clicked together.

"About fucking time, guys." Tony commented, then laughed as simultaneously Phil and Clint raised one-finger-salutes in his direction, not even breaking contact to insult him.


End file.
